Power at Thunderhawk Ranch

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Energy and Environment

A California rancher becomes his own utility.

By Douglas Bath

I met Terry Montgomery for the first time one mid-summer afternoon in 1993. Terry and his wife Taffy were looking into purchasing remote land in Mendocino County and had an idea that they might want an alternative approach to their energy needs. I am always interested in the way a person's interest in renewable energy evolves. An event sometimes provides a new perspective on the way things are done. Terry put it this way: "I once served as the chief of staff for the governor of Minnesota. During that time a tremendous groundswell of resentment rose up from the normally soft-spoken inhabitants of rural Minnesota when the utility began to run a 400kW powerline across the land. The National Guard had to be called out. This made me ponder the choices between energy consumption and the environment."

"I was raised on a cattle ranch in a remote part of South Dakota where we had no electrical power. In my adult life, I took electrical power as a given, but my upbringing allowed me to face the prospect of a more austere lifestyle without a lot of trepidation."

The first requirement of being a homepower troubleshooter is flexibility. There are as many individual permutations of renewable energy systems as there are people who need them. I did my best that afternoon to provide Terry with valuable information for his situation without losing him in a miasma of techno-babble. In a soft-spoken conversational manner, he would first ask an intelligent question, then play out a fair amount of rope. I could then try and tie a pretty knot with it, or hang myself. This went on for about two hours. At the end of our conversation, we went our separate ways on amicable terms, with me wondering if I had left Terry a baffled and unlikely client, a more informed but still unlikely client, or a very informed but still unlikely client, or a very informed and very likely client. Either way, I felt brain-picked. Over the next few months, Terry called or stopped by for more information, which ultimately resulted in a rough quotation for an energy system large enough to handle the rigors of a full working ranch.

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